


chocolate chip cookies

by orphan_account



Category: All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket, Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, One-Shot, Oneshot, but on purpose, cringey tbh, flangst, the miserable mill, tmm, vfd, vfd apprenticeship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Charles and Sir, caught up in VFD and various other worldly troubles, find time for baking cookies together, thrice.





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from [harvest-witch](http://harvest-witch.tumblr.com/): _Ooh for the fic prompt thing, could you do Charles/Sir and something along the line of baking cookies?? XD_

“Thanks to some recent revisions, Food Technology and Nutrition is now mandatory for all organisation trainees,” the instructor began, her amber eyes piercing every child in the room, seeming to pop out with her tightly tied bun.

Already, some pupils were doodling in their notepads, and others were taking notes. A boy chucked a pencil at his friend and a girl fiddled with the oven controls at her unit.

“Today, we’ll start off basic. We’re going to be baking cookies, partnered,” she continued, glaring at the distracted students. “You are going to be working with the other person at your unit. I have already arranged a boy/girl seating plan, although we have one too many a boy, so Charles and… Charles and his partner will be working together,” the teacher finished, squinting at her seating plan.

At that moment, the class broke into chatter, getting out their ingredients and looking at the recipe they were given. Attempting to make conversation, Charles enquired,

“So, what _is_ your name? Miss didn’t say. I’m Charles, if you hadn’t paid attention.”

“I paid attention. Nobody can pronounce my name; don’t bother, Charlie,” the other boy replied, running a hand through his fluffy hair absently.

“Charlie?” Charles retorted, the ends of his mouth lifting. “But I’m sure that I can pronounce your name. Or you could teach me.”

The nameless boy laughed, as if Charles had just told a stupid joke. “Fine then. My first name is Ruprecht. Some people can pronounce that. Have fun pronouncing Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, though.”

“Not fair. That’s a really long name,” Charles replied, beginning to add the butter to the flour. “But, names aside, could you weigh the sugar, please?”

“Sugar,” the instructor muttered as she walked past, overhearing their conversation.

“Ignore her. I’ve talked to her before. She’s a nutter. Let’s not follow this recipe and make our own,” Ruprecht decided.

Frowning, Charles asked, “What, do you know how to make cookies? Why shouldn’t we follow the recipe?”

“Life’s not all about following recipes and rules and instructions, Charlie boy.”

Charles snorted, but listened to his partner’s suggestions. They added too much sugar and made the chocolate chip to dough ratio the exact same, rendering their creation inedible, but they did have fun, and they did manage to lick sugar-coated chocolate off of each other’s fingers.

***

Sir seated himself in an old, rickety armchair by the fire, putting out his cigar and placing it on the table. Allowing his eyes to flutter shut, the manager sat for a while, his partner eventually bookmarking his place in the novel he was reading in order to make dinner. Before Charles could do so, however, the lumber company’s boss stood up, holding his hand to Charles’ chest.

“Hold on,” Sir insisted, making his way towards the fireplace. Atop it was a stack of paperwork which Sir was to do, but among the papers was something anomalous. The administrator pulled out the anomaly in order to study it with a small smile as his boyfriend—perhaps, sometime soon, fiancé—waited patiently. “I got this.”

Making his way over, Charles leaned so that he could read what the sheet said. It was a recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

“We didn’t get to finish making these last time. I thought that we could try again,” Sir suggested, not giving a chance for Charles to accept or decline. He strode over to the kitchen, beginning to pull out ingredients, his partner tongue-tied, it seemed.

“R-Rup,” the dumbstruck assistant eventually managed, using a pet name of sorts which had not been used for years.

“Come over here,” reiterated Sir.

This time, all of the measurements were exact. The kitchen filled with the rich aroma of freshly baked goods as said goods were pulled out of the oven, one side of Sir’s mouth lifting slightly. He then surveyed the tray as if looking for something, and then picked up the second cookie along the top row.

“Why don’t you try one?” Sir enquired cautiously, handing over the biscuit.

Quirking an eyebrow, Charles took the offered cookie and bit into it.

“It’s nice…”

Sir nodded, averting his eyes as he began to eat his own cookie. It was chewy and crumbly and melted in the mouth—just as cookies ought to be, when baked with the right proportions.

Just as Sir was about to give up on his mission, Charles yelped in pain.

“Agh! That’s rock solid!” he cried, spitting out crumbs everywhere to reveal a shiny centre to the cookie picked out by Sir.

Said shiny centre consisted of a simplistic silver band in a circle completed with a translucent blue stone, which was half-embedded into the cookie dough. The blue stone caught the light, glimmering sapphire.

Eyes widening, Charles looked up from his cookie.

“Is… Is this what I think it is?”

“I don’t know, Charlie boy, what do you think it is?”

“Oh my god! Ruprecht Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff!” Charles exclaimed, the surname rolling fluidly off the tongue with decades of practice—little games of try-to-pronounce, years of teasing about how easily Sir could say it and how terrible Charles seemed to be at it—“Yes! Of course, you silly goose!”

And they were brought together by a kiss, the homely smell of cookies enveloping the couple, years of tireless fear and apparent drifting apart, finally brought to peace by something as simple as a frayed sheet of paper containing a basic recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

***

“Sir,” Charles called, holding a letter in his hands.

“Charles,” Sir replied curtly, making his way over. “What is it?”

“Some volunteers have contacted us. They want lumber.”

“Volunteers? I’ll give no such lumber.”

Sighing, Charles seated himself heavily upon a stair, looking up before quickly averting his eyes again. Even little looks seemed too loud these days, too verbal; their relationship was one of business, of ironing and cooking while the other did—or rather, neglected—paperwork.

“You’re a good person, Ruprecht. I know you are. You’re a volunteer at heart.”

Sir looked almost as if he was about to slap his partner, taking a towering stride towards Charles but then halting.

“You fucking moron. Do you think I dislike them because they’re _volunteers_? You think I don’t want them to go away because ooh, they’re all fucking noble and saving the goddamn world by, oh, reading some bloody books? Charles, you’re a fool.”

Icy silence stretched out between the pair, before Sir continued, quietly, as if afraid of being overheard, “I used to say to myself that you understood me like nobody else did. But I guess I was wrong. You’re all the same, volunteer or not, arsonist or fire-fighter, reader or non-reader.”

“Sir,” Charles pleaded, his voice dim as well, as if some terrible secret would be discovered if he spoke too loudly. “Ruprecht, please.”

Marching off, the manager returned to his office without responding, leaving Charles sat on the stairs, determined to not cry. He would be a good partner and do what his side of the business deal was.

Making his way to the kitchen, he opened a cupboard door and opened a can of baked beans—Sir’s least favourite culinary item—only to find no baked beans and instead a box. Charles then continued to open the box to pull out a tattered, faded sheet, with some words indistinguishable, but he did not need to read the words. The paper was only for comfort.

Charles preheated the oven, opened another cupboard in order to take flour, collected sugar from a fashionable and secure container, and retrieved butter from the fridge. He weighed everything, making sure that they were exact for what he was going to make. Finding a small bar of chocolate—seemingly the only chocolate they had—the domestic cook broke it into tiny chips and sprinkled the chunks into his mixture. Everything was ready.

As the house filled with the warm, homely scent of chocolate chip cookies being oven baked, the sound of a certain boat-rowing song being hummed emanated from upstairs and the sound of pages flipping sounded from downstairs and any cold silence which might have been shared before was, momentarily, forgotten.


End file.
